10 



The pragmatic character of the American Nation was reinforced by 

 the dramatic lesson of the atomic bomb project. But other less dramatic 

 forces were at work that also encouraged public belief in the efficacy 

 of science for public purposes, such as — 



A rising level of public education, with increasing emphasis on 

 scientific materialism; 



A great increase in the population of trained scientists, and 

 A proliferation of demonstrations of scientific success, such as in 

 military hardware and systems, space projects, achievements in 

 biomedicine, and the bewildering proliferation of computer tech- 

 nology. 



Science has apparently been enlisted in the national effort to achieve 

 the political goal of freedom. As with each previous period of U.S. 

 history, the means used has tended to shape the objectives and the 

 methodology by which the objectives are sought. Since science is in- 

 herently materialistic and systematic, the applications of science to 

 the preservation and expansion of human freedom have led to the 

 extensive use for this purpose of the computer, systems analysis, 

 cost/effectiveness calculations, and quantitative standards of measure- 

 ment. Pofitical leaders apparently look to the skills and techniques of 

 science to wipe out disease, guarantee military security, extend man's 

 life, control his numbers of progeny, eliminate the hazards of accident 

 and environmental degradation, insure economic growth and stabihty, 

 erase pockets of poverty, expand the utility of leisure time, achieve 

 the exploration of space and the oceans, and perpetuate the resource 

 base needed to feed, clothe, house, and equip man for safety, comfort, 

 and happiness. 



More specifically, science is to be the means by which the political 

 system is to achieve a long hst of concrete national projects such as 

 an anticancer campaign, a communications satelhte, a rapid transit 

 system, improved technical standards of highway and automotive 

 safety, a desalting plant, and so on. 



In the pofitical world, science has become a foremost national 

 resource whose exploitation is regarded as contributing to the enlarge- 

 ment or preservation of human freedom. Basic research is judged to 

 contribute by enlarging human understanding, applied research by 

 enlarging human options, and technology by putting selected options 

 to work to create beneficial structures and systems. 



However, as the automotive safety illustration demonstrated, 

 science is not in complete harmony Avith the political objective of the 

 United States. The achievements of science can sometimes extend 

 freedom, but they also act at times to constrain it. vScience is based 

 on the exercise of human discipline to establish a rigorous characteriza- 

 tion of cause and effect relationships. Applied research exploits these 

 relationships by being obedient to them. Engineering materializes 

 these relationships into coherent structures and systems. In these 

 contexts, man emerges as a human component of systems, subservient 

 to the same natural laws of cause and effect as are the inanimate 

 elements of systems. 



If the Congress is confronted by the opportunity to exploit science 

 to expand human freedoms, the Congress would also seem to be con- 

 fronted by the obligation to constrain or resist the encroachment of 

 science on human freedoms. Science does not create ideal relation- 

 ships of man and nature; it identifies and applies the laws of nature. 



